Moscow -
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that a draft of a new United Nations humanitarian resolution on Syria was unacceptable because it was “absolutely one-sided.”
“The ideas that were shared with us by those initiating this process... are absolutely unacceptable and contain an ultimatum for the government, that if they don't solve all this in two weeks then we automatically introduce sanctions,” Lavrov said in Moscow.
“Instead of engaging in everyday, meticulous work to resolve problems that block deliveries of humanitarian aid, they see a new resolution as some kind of simplistic solution,” he said.
UN diplomats have tried to persuade Russia to back a new resolution, drafted by Australia, Jordan and Luxembourg, which “demands that all parties, in particular the Syrian authorities, immediately end the sieges of the Old City of Homs.”
But Lavrov said focusing on one city and the government's role was “absolutely one-sided and detached from the facts.”
“It's as if there are no witness accounts, even from the humanitarian agencies, that the militant groups are the main impediments to the humanitarian operation in Homs and in delivering humanitarian aid to the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp,” he said.
He added that other Syrian cities like Zahra and Al Hasakah also need to be unblocked, and that the UN needed to focus more on the spread of terrorism in the war-torn country.
“It's time for the Security Council to pay attention to an equally frightening aspect of the Syrian crisis, and that is the growth of terrorism due to the conflict.”
“It's time not just to react to the singular manifestations of terrorism,” he said. “It's time to... speak out in principle about the terrorist threat, to approach this problem systematically.” - Sapa-AFP